Draft Profile: Gavin McKenna
· Yahoo Sports
We must begin with the fact that everyone who said that Gavin McKenna was going to score three points per game before the season began simply does not know anything about college hockey. That being established, McKenna still had a great year for Penn State and more than proved himself worthy of the first-overall pick.
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McKenna is a 5-foot-11, 170-pound left wing who came to the Nittany Lions in the first wave of CHL entrants into college hockey. It’s understandable that people thought he would produce; after all, he averaged over two points per game in the WHL with the Medicine Hat Tigers, who he also led to the Memorial Cup Finals (they lost to the London Knights).
I want to preface this by saying that I agree with Alex Drain, among others, that McKenna going to Penn State was a mistake on his part. Coach Guy Gadowsky has never coached that level of talent before, and the Nittany Lions were a team that struggled to put together consistent performances all year. Gadowsky’s playing structure is extremely free-wheeling, with an offense based on rush chances and a defense based on hopefully scoring the goal so that you don’t have to play defense. I’m exaggerating, but Penn State’s deeply chaotic style might have worked had the team had a lot of chemistry, but they didn’t have that. It just resulted in a team that could sometimes play offense and rarely play defense, and the team didn’t get off the ground as much as expected as a result.
What that resulted in was McKenna having to play way too many minutes in way too many roles. He was way overleveraged, and it really hurt him in the first half of the season. While he posted a respectable 18 points then, he had just four goals, wasn’t engaged physically in play and didn’t backcheck nearly enough. He was racking up assists, but the majority of them came on the man advantage. McKenna struggled to acclimate, and on a team that was struggling to find cohesion, he didn’t look much like a first-overall pick. He was prone to disappearing in big games, going very quiet against Big Ten heavyweights like Michigan and Michigan State, and it only fueled the perception that he wasn’t worth the first overall pick.
In the second half of the year, he put it all together. McKenna is an extremely smart player with incredible abilities with the puck on his stick. The way he’s able to manipulate the puck and control the slot is really something special, and that showed a lot from December onward. He grew on both ends of the ice, too: his points total increased and he tracked back much better, as well. I don’t have a ton of concerns with his motor, either; he played more than 27 minutes twice against Michigan in games that ended in regulation. He fixed a lot of the lazy backcheck narratives in the second half and overall showed a lot of growth.
I’d say the comparisons to Patrick Kane are probably accurate. McKenna is very much a playmaker rather than a finisher, and that’s totally fine. His assists are highlight-reel worth and he’s going to be fine if he can add a little more grit to his game. I just want to see him really win a battle along the boards. He’s got the talent for everything else. The Leafs should be very comfortable taking him first overall.